


Just A Minute More

by purple_embroidery



Series: Les Amis are parents (send help) [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enjolras and Grantaire become parents, Established Relationship, Fluff, Jehan and Enjolras are best friends, Kid Fic, M/M, Pancakes, Surrogacy, Wildly OOC, a dog called Muffin, meandering fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:49:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_embroidery/pseuds/purple_embroidery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Enjolras, love, I don't care if it's your favourite colour, we are not painting a room blood red. That would be terrifying to wake up to. It's like you want our child to turn into Carrie."</p><p>E and R are about to welcome home their newborn baby. It's going about as well as you might expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just A Minute More

**Author's Note:**

> It may help to read [Icecream For Dinner](http://archiveofourown.org/works/921407) before you read this, just for a bit of context about Jehan and Courfeyrac. But you'll still understand this just fine if you don't.

Two men are standing in front of the paint sample wall at the hardware store. Judging by the sighs from the blond man, they've been there for a while.

"R, please, can we just pick a colour and go? I need to make sure the kitchen is clean. Plus, I'm starting to get a migraine from the paint fumes."

"Enjolras, it's our child's bedroom. It is where they will live. It is where they'll have friends over, hide from us, where we'll read to them, everything. This is important."

The blond man rolls his eyes. "It's just paint. And the bassinet is going to be in our room anyway." He grabs a sample at random. "How about this one?"

The dark-haired man next to him slaps it out of his hands in disgust. "Enjolras, love, I don't care if it's your favourite colour, we are not painting a room blood red. That would be terrifying to wake up to. It's like you  _want_  our child to turn into Carrie."

Enjolras scrunches up his nose in confusion. Grantaire would think it was cute, if Enjolras wasn't being so ridiculous. "Why can't we have red? I like red.  _You_  like red. What about something  _like_  red? Is orange acceptable? Or just... I don't know, a pastel? Don't kids' rooms normally have pastel?" 

"I am not painting our baby's room pastel anything. It will look like the Easter Bunny exploded in there. Plus, it's so cliché. You may as well just paint it all baby blue and fill it with toy trucks. Or baby pink, and fill it with princess crowns."

Enjolras frowns at the idea of blatant gender normativity, and Grantaire smiles at his husband fondly before turning back to the wall. 

The attendant at the paint counter is about to come over for the fifth time to ask if they need help (Grantaire can see it in her eyes) so he grabs a few samples and starts going through them. He pulls out one, a nice bright orange, and Enjolras is triumphant. 

"I'm not painting a full room with that, it's almost as bad as red. But I like the idea of having this on the wall with the window, and then white for the other walls, and we can decorate the walls with those decals Jehan got us from IKEA? At least the furniture is all white. What do you think, love?"

Enjolras smiles and nods. He has as much colour sense as a dog, while Grantaire's colour sense is much closer to that of a butterfly. If you take his personality into account, maybe a mantis shrimp. "Orange sounds good. Now can we please get the paint and leave? That attendant looks like she wants to skin us both alive and use  _us_  to paint walls."

Grantaire's grin is suddenly evil. "Sure, we're almost done, love. We just need to pick a white paint."

Enjolras looks at the wall of white paint samples and groans. It's going to be a long afternoon.

  

~~

 

Seventeen hours and thirteen cups of coffee later, the room is painted and Enjolras is ready to nap through the day. Or at least try and forget what paints smells (and tastes, don't ask) like. Unfortunately, his husband has other plans, and as soon as they've both showered, and are marginally less paint-smeared, Grantaire is dragging Enjolras back out of the house and into the car.

Enjolras slumps in his seat and glares out of the window. "Why are you so obsessed with not letting me clean anymore? Ann-Marie is due in a week, our baby could be coming home in as little as seven days, I want to make sure that the house is ready!"

"Everything except the nursery has been ready for months, love. Stop worrying so much. We're going to go grab some food, because I am dying for pancakes, and then we're going to get some flowers and go see Ann-Marie, because I know you want to, and then we'll go home and finish the nursery. Then I will make you sleep for about a thousand years." 

Enjolras makes an incredibly grumpy face at his husband. "Why am I not sleeping now?"

Grantaire rolls his eyes. There's a splash of paint in one of the dark curls framing his face. "Because, my dearest one, our house stinks of paint. And you will just whine about it and not sleep anyway. Plus, like I said:  _pancakes_."

At the restaurant, Enjolras sits down and immediately pulls out his notes. "Okay, so when we do get home I just want to make sure the steriliser works, and set up the nappy stuff in the laundry, and I want to start arranging the baby furniture, when will the paint be dry? And I want to go over the parental leave forms again, and-"

Grantaire steals his notebook, and replaces it with a plate of pancakes. "Will you please stop thinking for ten minutes? I am trying to enjoy my pancakes. Everything will be fine."

 "We're going to be dads in a week. There will be an actual living breathing baby in our house and we're the ones who will be taking care of it. Forgive me if I'm a little-"

Grantaire's hand is suddenly over his mouth, and the man in question grins at him before removing his hand. "We're going to be fine, love. We have a pet, we both had younger siblings, you are fantastic with Jehan and Courf's little one, and with Feuilly and 'Rel's girls. We got this. We will be good dads. Now eat your damn pancakes, or I will eat them for you."

 

~~

 

They pull up outside a tiny but immaculate house and are immediately greeted by an overly-excited terrier and a heavily pregnant woman with wild blonde curls. Ann-Marie waves a newspaper at them and drags them inside.

"Guys! It's so nice to see you! I've been meaning to call all week! Someone at work who didn't realise the baby is yours gave me a set of baby sheets, did you want them? They won't fit on my bed and Muffin here will just eat them if I put them on her doggy bed. They're plain yellow, no icky designs, I'll get them for you to have a look at." She bustles off and brings out the sheets, plus a tray of coffee and one of those boxes of Danish cookies.

Grantaire frowns at her. "Ann-Marie, darling, have you actually been taking it easy like you said you would? I thought you finished at work a few weeks ago?"

The blonde just grins at them both and starts pouring drinks. "Of course I have, I just went back to talk to payroll, see the kids and get my laptop. If I stop working completely I have to start being useful in other ways and we all know that won't work. I've pretty much just been writing and playing Candy Crush, it's great!"

 Grantaire gently pulls her down to sit next to him on the couch, and starts tracing patterns on her arms with his fingers as she keeps talking. Enjolras finishes pouring drinks, and starts on his ninth coffee in less than 24 hours. He'd like to think that's not a normal thing, but he's done it before and he'll do it again.

They'd met Ann-Marie through Jehan about two years ago, when he and Courfeyrac's son Luc had first started school. She had taken an immediate shine to the little boy who was already reading well above his age level, and had gotten along well with his poet father when they'd met at parent-teacher interviews. Courfeyrac had tried to set her up with Combeferre once or twice, but when it didn't work out she had stayed, already an important part of their circle of friends.

When Grantaire and Enjolras had brought up their plans to adopt, Ann-Marie had pulled them aside and volunteered to be their surrogate. She told them she knew she didn't want to be a mother, but had been a surrogate several years before for a cousin with PCOS, and she had never regretted her decision.

It had all happened rather quickly, after that. Marius had helped them draft paperwork, Joly and Combeferre had talked them through the medical side of things and helped Ann-Marie find a midwife, their friends and families had rallied around them, and now here they were, a week away from meeting Enjolras and Grantaire's baby.

The three of them have been talking for about five minutes, Grantaire halfway through describing the baby's room to Ann-Marie, when she suddenly goes white.

"Ann-Marie? Are you alright?"

It takes her a moment to answer, and when she does it's clear that she's thinking of something else. "Huh? Yeah, I'm fine. Just... I think I'm beginning to have contractions? Enjolras, can you grab my phone?"

Enjolras hands her the phone and she slowly walks into the other room, while Enjolras and Grantaire are left staring at each other in what feels like the first stages of shock.

At some point Enjolras is vaguely aware of the dog climbing into his lap, but he only stops staring at Grantaire in a panic when Ann-Marie comes back into the room.

She smiles at them both and scoops up Muffin as she sits back down next to Grantaire, and only once she's gotten comfortable does she seem to realise that both the men are staring at her.

Ann-Marie smiles at them both. "I'm fine, guys. They're contractions, I'm not dying."

Enjolras suddenly feels way out of his depth. "But shouldn't you be going to hospital? Do you need us to drive you? What can we do?"

"Enjolras, my contractions aren't frequent, and my waters haven't broken. I'd love a lift, but not for a few hours. If you want to help now, go find the guestroom and have a nap. Both of you. We've got a while to go."

Enjolras is still feeling uncertain, but learned about five minutes after meeting her that it is a bad idea to go against Ann-Marie. In a few short minutes he's lying next to Grantaire, who is already snoring (how?) and he's going through the saved bookmarks on his phone frantically, trying to remember all the birth research he'd done, all the plans they'd made.

He knows they want this, he knows they're ready to be dads, but he's still terrified.

Enjolras knows he won't sleep, so he leaves Grantaire snoring (again, how?) and tiptoes out into the lounge room. Ann-Marie is asleep on the couch with Muffin lying on her feet, so he walks outside, dialing Jehan's number as he finds a bench and sits down.

Courfeyrac answers. "Enjy! What's up? How can your friendly neighbourhood Courf help today?"

Enjolras rolls his eyes as he answers. "Hey Courf. Is Jehan there? I just needed to download a bit."

There's a pointed sigh on the other end of the line. "My beloved poet has taken Luc shopping and he forgot his phone, _again_ , so it's just me. Want to chat?"

Enjolras considers this. He and Courf have been friends since primary school, but Jehan has always been best at talking him down from his worries. "I'm just a bit frazzled, I guess? Grantaire and I dropped by to see Ann-Marie, and her contractions started while we were having coffee, and... Look, Courf, I'm terrified."

Enjolras is fairly certain the noises that come from the phone's speakers are actually Courf, and not a balloon with its air escaping, but he's not entirely sure. "Courf? Seriously, I'm freaking out, can you help?"

The balloon stops screeching and returns to Courf's usual baritone voice. "Okay, Enjolras, we'll start easy. Where's Ann-Marie now?"

"She's asleep on the couch."

"Good. That's a good sign. And Grantaire?"

"He's asleep in the guest room."

"Also good. Excellent, we're going well. Now, did Ann-Marie talk to her midwife before she went to sleep?"

"Yes, she called Julie and they spoke for a bit."

"Awesome. We are nailing this. Still with me, Enjolras? Still breathing? Cool. Okay, next. Did Ann-Marie mention a timeframe?"

"At least a few hours before we need to head to the hospital. But what if-"

"No buts, Enjy. She's given birth before, you haven't. She and Julie know what they're doing. Now, Jehan just got home, did you still need to speak to him?"

Enjolras feels better, but he needs to hear Jehan's voice. "Can I talk to him, just for a sec?"

"Sure, Enjy. Love you!" The phone clunks as it is put down, and a few seconds later Jehan is on the line. Enjolras can tell he's smiling. "Hey, my dear. I hear you're about to become a daddy?"

And suddenly Enjolras feels a million times better. "Apparently, yes. Reckon we can do it?"

"Enjolras, you've both been ready for this for years. You've got all of us to help you out if you need it. You'll be fine. Now, Luc has a play-date this afternoon with Feuilly and the girls, do you need Courf and Bahorel and I to do anything to the house?"

"Oh! Um, yes, that'd be great. Everything for straight away is set up, but the kitchen is a bit messy and the baby's furniture needs to go into the nursery. I think Grantaire wants to finish the decorating himself, but the dresser and everything is still out in the dining room and there's not much space."

"Cool. I've always liked furniture tetris. Now, when was the last time you slept?"

Some days, Enjolras suspects Jehan is actually psychic. This is one of those days. "Um, maybe 30 hours ago?"

"Mother of god. Okay, do you think you can sleep now? It'll help."

"I can try. Did you want us to let you know when the baby arrives?"

There is silence on the end of the line. "Enjy dear, I'm offended that you'd consider _not_ telling us. I think Courfeyrac started buying presents for you both about three months ago. I know Combeferre has something waiting at the hospital for you both. We will want to know everything, I can promise you that. Now _go and sleep_."

"Alright, Jehan. I'll keep you guys posted, okay? And don't let Courf re-arrange the bookshelves again, I think R still wants to cry when he thinks about that."

"Bye, darling."

Enjolras hangs up and quietly makes his way back inside. Ann-Marie is still fast asleep, and he's beginning to feel the caffeine wear off. He wanders back to the guest room and curls up next to his husband. He's asleep in less than three minutes.

 

~~

 

Several hours later Enjolras and R are woken by the door being opened and the small terrier jumping on the bed to paw at R's face. Ann-Marie is in the doorway, and her smile is a little forced.

"Rise and shine, guys! Jehan is on his way around to get Muffin, Julie thinks I should head to hospital soon. She'll meet me there. You good to drive?"

They're both up straight away, Grantaire packing up Muffin's food and toys to leave with Jehan, and Enjolras getting the hospital bag packed.

Jehan is there only a few minutes later with Luc in tow, the seven-year old bouncy and excited for a few days with Muffin. There's a flurry of last minute hugs and advice and then they're on the way to the hospital.

The trip is short and thankfully uneventful.  R sits in the back with Ann-Marie, who is clutching his hand in a grip so tight his dark-skinned fingers are going pale.

When they arrive at hospital they're met by Ann-Marie's midwife, Julie, and a nurse with a wheelchair. R and Enjolras hang back as Ann-Marie is taken inside, but the nurse turns back to look at them both. "You can come through, Ann-Marie has requested you both be nearby during her delivery." He smiles reassuringly, looking at the panicked expressions. "The delivery suite is set up, we're all ready to go. I'm sure you'll be meeting your baby very soon."

They follow in a daze. Everything seems to go fairly quickly after Ann-Marie is settled into the room. Enjolras watches as Ann-Marie is hooked up to a set of incomprehensible machines, as a steady stream of medical staff come in and out of the room, as  Julie encourages and coaxes their friend through the pains of labour. The two men take turns holding Ann-Marie's hand and talking to her while the other sleeps (Grantaire) or makes lists on his phone (Enjolras).

It feels like five minutes later, but is more likely several hours, when the level of activity in the room increases and suddenly everything gets a bit louder, a bit more focussed.

Ann-Marie is covered in sweat and grasping at Enjolras and R's hands like lifelines as she bears down. Julie stands at the end of the bed, encouraging and excited, as there's a final push and an almighty scream from Ann-Marie.

And then suddenly there's a new noise in the room. It's loud, and unexpected, but to Enjolras and Grantaire it's the best noise in the world. It's the cry of a baby.

Julie and the medical staff fuss over the tiny little newborn, and then one of the nurses turns to look up at the three of them at the top of the bed and smiles. "Okay, dads, who wants to hold your baby first?"

The two men freeze and stare at each other for a second, before Enjolras smiles and nods his head at Grantaire. "You first. I'm shaking too much."

The nurse smiles encouragingly at Grantaire as he walks towards the end of the bed. "It might help if you take off your shirt. Body heat is good." Enjolras feels the tears coming as he watches his beloved, beautiful husband reach out to cradle the tiny bundle against his chest. The white towel is stark against his dark skin, which contrasts again with the almost purple-pink skin of their baby.

He stands there staring until Ann-Marie reaches out to push him forwards. "Go and meet your kid, Enjolras. I'm not going anywhere."

He slowly moves to the two of them, afraid of interrupting them as Grantaire stares down at the bundle in his arms with an expression Enjolras has never seen before. He looks up as Enjolras gets closer and smiles, the tears in his eyes matching the ones in Enjolras's. "Hey, my love. This is Avery. Avery, meet your other daddy."

Enjolras almost rips his shirt in his sudden hurry to hold their child, and when Grantaire has settled Avery in his arms he can barely see, his eyes blurring with tears. Grantaire stays close, stroking Avery's tiny cheek with the point of a finger as they both stare, astounded that this tiny, precious little person is _theirs_.

Enjolras can tell there are medical staff hovering around, and he needs to go check on Ann-Marie, and there are people to call and forms to fill in and things to learn.

But at the moment he is with the two people he loves most in the world, and he's going to stay that way for just a minute more.

**Author's Note:**

> [This](http://www.huggies.com.au/baby-care/room-designs/bedroom/toddler/girl/warm/574-mia-s-happy-bedroom) is a bit like how I imagine Avery's room, except much less gendered.
> 
> This was something I didn't intend to write so much about, when I came up with this. It was meant to be short and silly.
> 
> I tried to research surrogacy and pregnancy as much as I could, and I've tried to be accurate. As far as I can tell this is a bit of an unusual situation, as E and R are friends with their surrogate. I don't think a lot of intended parents would be in the room with their surrogate when she is giving birth. 
> 
> If I am not accurate, or if I'm downright offensive, please let me know!
> 
> Come yell at me over on [tumblr](http://www.embroideredcupcake.tumblr.com) if you like ^_^
> 
> I like yelling, and making new friends!


End file.
